Welsh Word of the Day: Gwisgo (to dress / to wear)

Today’s Welsh word of the day is gwisgo, which has four similar but subtly different meanings. Firstly, it can mean to dress oneself or someone else in dillad (clothing). Secondly, it can mean to dress or to decorate something. Thirdly, it can mean to put on a specific piece of dillad. Fourthly, it can mean to wear a specific piece of dillad.

Above is the standard pronunciation of gwisgo in modern Welsh, but there is some variation. The second g can sound harder (more like a c) or softer depending on accent, and many South Walians pronounce the s as a si (sh) when speaking colloquially.

This word is a verbal form of the noun gwisg, which comes from the proto-Celtic *weska and through its Latin cousin vestis is ultimately a cognate of several English words, including vest and wear, as well as words in many other European languages. Gwisg is a pretty wide ranging word, which I often translate as outfit, but can mean simply clothing, or refer to a specific dilledyn (garment) such as a robe or sometimes ffrog (a dress). The plural of gwisg is gwisgoedd.

Gwisgo can only soft mutate:

Let’s talk now a bit more about how to use gwisgo in each of its senses.

Firstly, to dress oneself or someone else. This would appear in the phrases mae hi’n gwisgo (she’s getting dressed), or mae hi’n gwisgo ei baban (she’s dressing her baby). In very formal Welsh, the word may be replaced with ymwisgo – here we’re seeing the reflexive prefix ym-, which is used when a verb is being done to oneself or to another person. And in the Pembrokeshire dialect, the word taclu or ymdaclu is also used in this sense.

Secondly, to dress, as in to adorn or to decorate, an ystafell (room), a ffenestr siop (a shop window). In this sense you could also say addurno, which you may guess from the spelling means, and is a cognate of, to adorn. You can then use the word â to specify what you are decorating or dressing something with, as in gwisgo’r goeden â tinsel / addurno’r goeden â tinsel (to dress the tree with tinsel).

The third and fourth meanings are a little harder to distinguish from each other. If you say mae hi’n gwisgo trwsus, this could mean she’s putting trousers on, or it could mean she’s wearing trousers. Personally I think it’s useful and concise to have just one word covering these different scenarios, but as you can see, you’ll sometimes need to rely on context to understand exactly what someone means.

It is also possible to say mae ganddi trwsus amdani (literally she has trousers about her) for she’s wearing trousers, but this is pretty old-fashioned.

You can also pair the verb with adverbs to describe the manner in which someone is dressed, as in gwisgo’n hardd (to be finely dressed) or gwisgo’n blaen (to be plainly dressed).

Gwisgo appears in some terms and set phrases:

• gwisgo fel = to dress up as
• gwisgo cleddyf = to carry a sword
• gwisgo mantell = to take on the mantle
• gwisgo allan = to wear out (Northern)
• chwaeth gwisgo = dress sense
• ystafell wisgo = changing room / dressing room
• bwrdd gwisgo = dressing table

It is not typically used for a dressing gown, though, which in Welsh is usually gŵn tŷ (literally house gown).

There are a couple of slightly more idiomatic expressions that use the word, too. Although as you can see in the list above, some speakers do say gwisgo allan for to wear out, you can also say gwisgo i’r edau, which literally translates to wear to the threads, kind of like the English adjective threadbare.

Another, gwisgo’r trwsus, is probably a calque directly from English. This means to wear the trousers and is stereotypically used to refer to a dynes (woman) who is seen as being more assertive than her gŵr (husband), or ‘being in charge’ in the relationship.

One version of this idiom that was in use in North Wales in the early 1900s is gwisgo’r bais a’r clos (to wear the petticoat and the trousers). I think this one’s more interesting – I like how the gwraig (wife) is wearing both at once!